Amanda Lynn Hinson, an author and former small business owner, has quietly kicked off her campaign against Congressman Collin Peterson in Minnesota's Seventh Congressional District.
Hinson, who lived in Russia from 2010 to 2015, moved to Long Prairie with her husband and four children. She wrote the book, "Wide Open Curtains: A Journal of a Pregnant American in Russia," about her time in Russia.
According to her campaign website, Hinson gave her first campaign speech at a meeting of the Otter Tail Republicans in Perham last evening.
Peterson was first elected to Congress in 1990 and has been re-elected by comfortable margins, most recently in 2014 when Peterson defeated Sen. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, by almost ten points.
Hinson was born in South Dakota and later moved to Minnesota, graduating from Perham High School and North Central University.
In a blog post on her campaign website, Hinson wrote that she decided to run for Congress soon after moving back to Minnesota from Russia.
Peterson has yet to formally announce if he will seek re-election, but when asked by the Star Tribune last year if he would run in 2016, Peterson said, "Yes. Until I'm not."
Picture source: Hinson for Congress
